For this week’s VP blog, Justin Van Kleeck, Vegan Publishers’ new staff writer, offers his thoughts on vegan masculinity.
I have been a vegan for over 15 years. I have been a man for over 35 years. When I went vegan, I never felt particularly troubled as a man by the decision to stop eating meat and other animal products. I was aware of the caricature of vegetarians in popular culture, which attaches femininity (which is “bad”) to any and all things “veg,” but my process of going vegan was very simple: Could I continue living in a way that did, or even could, cause harm and suffering to other beings.
The answer was “no,” and I was vegan.
Recently, there has been a renewed attention to the issue of masculinity and its ability to withstand the supposed weakening, feminizing qualities of veganism. A recent story on NPR recounted the lifestyles and stories of vegan men who were seeking to expand the notion of masculinity to include things like compassion, sustainable living, and not eating other animals. A few months ago, VegNews published “The Vegan Man Issue,” making a similar attempt at dispelling the concerns of modern manly men that going vegan would mean…well, terrible things for their manhood.
A number of strongly negative reactions to these proclamations of vegan manhood have come out, thankfully. But as a vegan man, I have been particularly bothered by these efforts to save masculinity from the threat of veganism.
Or, put another way, I have felt deeply disconcerted by the attempts of some to save masculinity from supposed threats through an effort to make it subsume those threats within itself.
From my perspective, masculinity and the entire system of rigid gender binaries are not worth saving. They are not worth shoring up, they are not worth bailing out, and they are not worth the harm to be done by hamstringing the subversive political energy of ethical veganism–a subversiveness towards oppressive systems that has been talked about more widely since at least the publication of Carol J. Adams’s The Sexual Politics of Meat.
Let me be blunt. I do not want masculinity to feel safe about veganism, because I do not want patriarchy to squelch yet another effort to bring it down (which, I believe, ethical veganism damn well ought to be doing). I do not want my life as a vegan man to be constantly measured against some code of abstract qualities, from appearance to behavior, so that some of my fellow males might not worry about becoming more “feminine” should they decide to live a kinder life and go vegan.
And I sure as hell do not want feminism and the inherent feminist component of ethical veganism to be sanitized, silenced, and suffocated by some clumsy, panicked effort to expand or redefine “masculinity” so that it includes what has hitherto been denigrated as central to “femininity”–thereby continuing to relegate the feminine to the role of less than, secondary, or inferior.
I am sick and tired of how much harm we do to individuals by trying to fit them into the masculine-feminine ideological box or judge them based on their ability to cram themselves in it. I am hopeful that ethical veganism can help us all to see the dangers in oppressive systems, no matter what form they take.
Justin Van Kleeck has a Ph.D. in English but left academia in part to work on veganism, the environment, and other social issues. He is a freelance writer who, with his wife Rosemary, recently founded Triangle Chance for All (http://trianglechanceforall.org), a non-profit organization that runs a small “microsanctuary” for rescued farmed animals and promotes ethical veganism. Justin and Rosemary are working to build The Microsanctuary Movement (www.facebook.com/microsanctuarymovement) in order to help inspire others to use what resources they can to provide sanctuary to animals in need. Despite all of that, Justin is an extreme and unapologetic introvert.
“I have been a vegan for over 15 years. I have been a man for over 35 years.” I love that! Being kind to animals is all that matters. I only date vegans because I only want to be with compassionate men. They are the best!!
[…] Read more here. […]
Personally, I think that being vegan makes you more manly! Consider the qualities attached to it: thinking independently, protecting others, and sticking to your convictions even when they might be viewed as weird or wrong. Sounds pretty darn heroic to me, and heroism is supposedly one of the cornerstones of masculinity.
In April of 2012 my eating habbits were about to change for the better. My family and I were going to burger joints and burrito spots and eating like large prey animals. At a very rapid pace I cut down on meat and looked towards YouTube for some sound advice on how I could eat and feel good. On the videos I was watching I saw people using the Vitamix. They were talking about a plant based lifestyle. Sounded good to me. Gradually I put more and more meat to the side until finally I was sitting with a decision to make. My family and I were in a restaurant getting ready to order dinner. My choice was the lentil soup, I loved it. From that fourth day in april 2012 my life had changed for the better. Along the way I am doing my best to change the way people think about food.
Hi
I’m a veggie trending towards veganism and have been veggie for a few years now. I buy cruelty free no leather and feed all strays I can
I am proud of me and my stance against others and try to talk them round to my ways of thinking. I think there’s still a lot of myths out there about veganism n vegetarianism that need dispelling and the most important thing is the animals welfare
I hope to make the transition fully and very soon
I love this article I have just read and think what is sexier than a compassionate man so masculinity is not the issue
Thanks
Being a vegan is the best thing that happened to me during this last one year. I have been a vegetarian for over 23 years because, as a veterinarian, I felt I could not eat my patients! The ethical and moral issue is very strong here. I know that animals are far more evolved than us, they need no language, they communicate telepathically, they adopt animals friends through many species, they sense danger much faster than humans, they communicate with humans in ways that we are too dumb to understand, they do not attack or kill unless they are provoked or they are hungry, they offer us friendship and remain loyal for life in whatever status we are in, they are the best thing that ever happened to a human and yet omnivores abuse and torture them for food, sport, leather, wool, medical and cosmetic research. What is happening to humans in the world today to are direct consequences of the immoral ways of man, enacted to themselves, to animals and to the environment
I’ve been a man for almost 70 years and a vegan for about 7 years (and shame on me for not being vegan longer) and want to say “well said” and good for you.
Anyone who worries about whether they are “masculine” or “feminine” or whatever has been bamboozled by destructive silliness and really needs to do some serious and persistent thinking about the cultural narratives they are attending to.
i heart this so much! yes! lets bring down the corporate structure of the patriarchy! i am seriously a vegan for political reasons! i despise the systematic oppression of beings and i like doing my best to stand against it!
Damn straight! Thanks, Ally!
Thank you! This piece is well wriiten and thoughtful, and makes so much sense! After taking a Feminism course when I returned to school for my bachelors degree, I remember feeling so angry once my eyes were opened to the many institutions and cultural norms that make the feminine “less than.” Choosing to eat a diet of compassion should not enter that list. I tire of hearing men shamed for choosing to eat plants. My husband embraces this lifestyle and enjoys being different than the norm. I think more men like you are rejecting society’s view of what is “manly”and embracing kind personhood, but we have a long way to go.